Career and professional opportunities and challenges for librarians and other information professionals specializing in information literacy and lifelong learning

Abstract

This article reviews the new career and occupational opportunities for librarians and other information professionals as a result of dramatic and pervasive developments in IT technologies in the last several decades. In particular, a case is made for a new information counsellor position which would be analogous to financial counsellors but operating in the information arena. Traditional library and information positions are being very widely expanded by new challenges which every social and economic sector, both public and private, is experiencing as they confront the twenty first century's rise in Google search engines, mobile devices like smart phones, and the spread of broadband and the Internet.